1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to telephones and, more particularly, to the transmission of digital images from a telephone.
2. Description of Related Art
Advancements in camera technology have made digital cameras an increasingly popular alternative to conventional film-based cameras. Digital cameras do not require film to capture images. Instead, digital cameras capture images by allowing light to pass through a series of lenses to focus the light at an image sensor. The image sensor is a semiconductor device that captures an image electronically as an array of pixels. A pixel is the smallest picture element of a digital image. A digital camera produces a digital representation of each pixel and stores the digital representation of each pixel in a storage medium such as a flash memory card. Digital cameras may include a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen that allows a user to immediately view images captured by the image sensor without having to develop film as required with film-based cameras.
Advancements have also been made in telephone system technology. In a conventional land-line telephone system employing circuit switching, a conventional land-line telephone provides a means to perform voice communication with a user at another device. Circuit switching is a switching system that establishes a dedicated physical communication connection between end points, through a network, for the duration of a communication session. A conventional land-line telephone is coupled to a local exchange carrier's central office via local loop telephone lines and performs voice communications by sending and receiving analog signals via the local loop telephone lines. Coupling modems to a sending site and a receiving site in a conventional land-line telephone system is a means for sending and receiving digital data via the local loop telephone lines.
Further, conventional land-line telephones can be used to call a gateway that performs packet switching to communicate with another device. Packet switching is a switching system that establishes a physical communication connection only long enough to send/receive data packets via a network, where the data packets may travel over many diverse communication links to get to a common endpoint. One advantage of packet switching is that it can increase the communication capacity of a network as compared to a network that uses circuit switching. Packet switching technologies have led to the development of telephones (e.g. Internet Protocol telephones) that perform packet switching directly without the need to call a gateway.
Another more recent advancement in telephone system technology is the development of wireless telephones and wireless networks to provide voice and data communications from a wireless telephone to another device. A wireless telephone and wireless network provide a wireless telephone user with mobility to communicate with another device while the user moves from one location to a second location. Wireless telephones and wireless networks may employ packet switching technologies.
Modern camera technology has recently been integrated with modern telephone system technology to allow integrators to produce and market camera phones. Camera phones are a combination of a digital camera and a wireless phone. Camera phones allow for capturing images, wireless transmission of those images over a data network to a remote location, and a variety of other functions.
Methods of transmitting a digital image from a camera phone over a data network to a remote location are well known. One such method involves a camera phone establishing a packet session with a packet data serving node (PDSN) via a radio access network and sending packets of data representing (i) a captured image, and (ii) a destination identifier, via the PDSN to a network server.
A destination identifier comprises information from which a destination may be ascertained. A destination identifier could take the form of an e-mail address which represents a destination such as network server that performs e-mail functions for an account associated with the e-mail address. Alternatively, a destination identifier could take the form of a mobile identification number (MIN) which represents among other things, a destination such as a remote camera phone operating under the MIN. Other types of destination identifiers are also possible.
A network server that receives a destination identifier along with a digital image may use the destination identifier to facilitate sending the digital image to the destination represented by the destination identifier. A party with access to the destination may view the digital image sent to the destination.
Another camera phone function involving digital images is photographic caller identification. Photographic caller identification occurs by identifying the phone number of the calling phone, identifying an image associated with the phone number, and displaying the image during the phone call. Photographic caller identification thus allows a camera phone user to view an image associated with the phone number of a calling phone.
Yet another camera phone function involving digital images is photographic phone book display. Photographic phone book display is an alternative or supplement to more traditional methods of displaying a personal phone book such as a list of phone numbers, names, or memory locations. Photographic phone book display occurs by displaying images assigned to phone numbers. A phone number is selected for dialing by identifying and selecting the image associated with the phone number to be dialed. Photographic phone book display may also display the selected image during an outgoing phone call to the dialed phone number.